Ok, been slapping a particular blog all over the place. I am not associated with it, I just have a particular love for it since it deals with psychology, psychological processes, and psychological bias.

The tagline says it all: A Celebration of Self Delusion.

We are all, unfortunately, self delusional... with varying extents. For instance, I am extremely deluded! O_o

I tend to like the writing here, because it is presented in what I feel is an easy-to-read format. Often, the studies involved in each article are linked at the end. Verifiability.

So, as my overactive mind is clicking through the recovery process, a lot of these things have again come to the forefront of my thinking, and I just feel it proper to share and discuss it with people here.



Misinformation Effect:

The Misconception: Memories are played back like recordings.

The Truth: Memories are constructed anew each time from whatever information is currently available, which makes things like eyewitness testimony unreliable.

In terms of issues presented on these boards, the misinformation effect directly addresses the rewriting of marital history, and the ever changing view of mistakes made.

Thoughts?

Are you getting enough sleep?

Lol. Yes.

I really thought you were calling out another forum member and we were about to have an internet throwdown. I guess I'll put the popcorn away.

Lol. That's another thread!

However, even doing that, I think I met my own intention. I don't want to be right, correct, or... I don't know, can't think of a third.

I am an arguer. I argue to understand, and to be understood.

My mother always called this type of person a Philadelphia Lawyer.

She leveled it against me more than once...

Okay, I'll play along for a little bit.

The Truth: Memories are constructed anew each time from whatever information is currently available, which makes things like eyewitness testimony unreliable.

I, and many courts, would disagree with your conclusion concerning eyewitness testimony.

For example: If you caught your wife in bed with another man, you would be an eyewitness to the truth. I sincerely doubt that your "memories" of that event would be "constructed anew each time from whatever information is currently available."

Truth doesn't change. And eyewitnesses to "life changing events" will not have current circumstances or "information" (whatever you meant that word to mean) make them construct something new, especially not something that denies the truth, unless they are in some way mentally incompetent or mentally ill.

Agreed!

What was the question?

QFT

So, what then is the truth according to your memory? The fact that your wife was in bed with another man? The identity of that man? What that man looked like?

If your wife never identified the man you saw her in bed with, would you be able to hunt him down and visually confirm who he was?

The courts may say yes, but repeated scientific study says no.

I'm sure you can think of plenty of people from your past, and not quite picture their face - yet, when you run into them again, suddenly you can remember them PERFECTLY.

That's because you now have something to construct from.

You don't have to believe it, though.

HHH, I think you are playing games, word games, mind games, and not too successfully. Not sure why you might think this is amusing or helpful, but this may be some weird "coping mechanism" you are using for some reason. But, once again, I'll naively play along, but I must warn you that this loses its "attractiveness" rather quickly because it becomes nonsensical.

So having said that, let's respond to your latest weirdness that attempts to "prove" this "construct theory" you are positing:

"So, what then is the truth according to your memory? The fact that your wife was in bed with another man? The identity of that man? What that man looked like?

If your wife never identified the man you saw her in bed with, would you be able to hunt him down and visually confirm who he was?

The courts may say yes, but repeated scientific study says no."

The truth is that my wife was having an affair. It was with another man. It did involve sexual encounters over the course of the 6 years of the affair. The "identity" of the man was confirmed by 3 primary source witnesses: 1) my wife as the active person cheating on our marriage; 2) by the face-to-face admission to me by the OM; and 3) by the many photographs of them from over the years in various states of undress and dress that I discovered and that led to the affair finally "coming to light."

Yes, even if my wife did not identify the man, I would have been able to track him down from the photographs, especially since I knew he was a former co-worker with my wife.
And that's about as "scientific" as you can get. So your "scientists" may well be wrong and their studies may well be junk, or biased, slanted, designed to produce the outcome they were looking for.

Ever heard that "a picture is worth a thousand words?" Ever heard that "cameras don't lie?" I can hear him now trying to make use of you "theory," "That's not me in that picture with my 'johnson' hanging out."

Or maybe it's just "Clintonspeak" for the meaning of "IS?"

"I'm sure you can think of plenty of people from your past, and not quite picture their face - yet, when you run into them again, suddenly you can remember them PERFECTLY.

That's because you now have something to construct from."

This is nonsense to apply to "truth." The TRUTH is that the person existed, not whether or not I can describe him years after the fact. Try asking me to describe someone to a sketch artist shortly after seeing them, and I'll bet the artist could draw a fair likeness.

Also, seeing someone is not the issue, nor is "remembering them perfectly," if they are real people. All seeing someone does is confirm the truth and brings into focus their current appearance versus what they looked liked like in the "past."
There is no "constructing" there, there is confirming there.

"You don't have to believe it, though."

Good, because I don't believe it. It's "psychobabble" at best.


HHH, don't you think it's time you stopped playing whatever game you seem to playing with this nonsense?

I am pretty curious as to what game it is that you are implying that I am playing?

In fact, my intention wasn't debate - that was your intention by applying disagreement.

So, let's deconstruct, again, what you are saying; in your case you had 3 different witnesses, and photographs.

The photographs, in and of themselves provide current material to work with.

In fact, your entire scenario is not what I presented, at all, in any manner.

This does not deconstruct the theory. Neither does tossing out "slant and bias" nonchalantly without providing evidence, nor specifying said bias or slant. Additionally, this effect being discussed has been confirmed in numerous studies, through varying methods.

What game are you playing at, then?

I have to, by your stance, assume that you did not read the article linked; I'll go a step further. I'll link some further articles;

http://www.slate.com/id/2254054/

http://www.holah.karoo.net/loftusstudy.htm

http://www.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=How+Our+Brains+Make+Memories+|+Science+%26+Nature+|+Smithsonian+Magazine&expire=&urlID=425056823&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.smithsonianmag.com%2Fscience-nature%2FHow-Our-Brains-Make-Memories.html%3Fc%3Dy%26page%3D1&partnerID=253167&cid=90849619

http://www.independent.co.uk/opinio...re-coming-for-your-childhood-668019.html

http://www.livescience.com/health/081022-erased-memories.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/mice-memory.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/body/how-memory-works.html

While I doubt you have the desire to read a single one of those, what I want to put on the table here, is this is the deconstruction of a base psychological bias in and of itself. It's not some "new aged" idea, it's been known and studied for decades, and is, in fact, employed by advertisers and politicians.

My "game" is discussion, not debate.

This statement is a self-admission of your intent: you like to debate. That's fine, so do I having been a former debater. But you then go on to protest that you don't want to debate, which is disingenuous and an attempt to plant "false information" that someone will naively accept as "truth."



The game you are playing is that you want your preconceived "truth" to BE "truth" that can be applied to every situation. You made no attempt to qualify your statement. You presented it as an absolute truth that applies to all situations. Then you try to back it up by presenting more psychobabble that is based on manipulation of the data and the situation to achieve the result that was intended.



Nonsense. You asked: " Thoughts?"

That was a direct invitation to a "debate" using the premise you stated, and by implication since you stated it, that you believe and that it has direct application to denying or questioning the reality of TRUTH.



Your Premise: "The Truth: Memories are constructed anew each time from whatever information is currently available, which makes things like eyewitness testimony unreliable.

In terms of issues presented on these boards, the misinformation effect directly addresses the rewriting of marital history, and the ever changing view of mistakes made."

Rewriting of marital is history is a common occurrence. That's due to the "Fog effect" and attempts by the WS to rationalize and justify their CHOICE to have an affair. But in the real world, not the "pyschobabble world," the FACT is the adultery. The details of the marital situation that led to the affair is a component, but the only truly relevant fact in affairs IS the fact of the affair itself. It either occurred or it didn't occur. IF you want to limit the concept of "misinformation" to the rationalizations used and the justifications drawn from those rationalizations, then I'd say fine. But you didn't limit the applicability of your premise to just an affair situation, you expanded it to be inclusive of ALL situations when you said, "which makes things like eyewitness testimony unreliable." That inclusiveness is what is WRONG and why I gave you my own personal experience as a means to "falsify" your statement. It does not hold up in ALL situations, as you stated, and is therefore ONLY applicable to a given specific situation.




You can claim "innocence" or simply being "misunderstood," but that is simply YOU deconstructing what you DID say. I don't have to "pull from memory" what you said because you wrote it and I can quote it verbatim.

Again, you made a blanket, all inclusive, statement that you presented as FACT.

I simply showed you that your premise in that statement was false, it is not all inclusive of all situations.

As for your article upon which you based you statement, it's a fine example of psychological manipulation of a situation designed so as to achieve the predetermined result of the author, and then an attempt to apply it to situations where facts ARE known.



You would assume wrongly then.

But to humor you a bit, here is the complete article and I'll even give you some comments and observations about the article:


Misinformation Effect
June 3, 2010
tags: Elizabeth Loftus, False Memories
by David McRaney
The Misconception: Memories are played back like recordings.
The Truth: Memories are constructed anew each time from whatever information is currently available, which makes things like eyewitness testimony unreliable.

"Have you ever been telling a story about something someone else in the room also experienced?
If so, have you ever disagreed on what happened? If you can�t both be right, what does that mean?

Take out a piece of paper and get ready to write.
Really do it; it will be fun.
Ok.
Now, read this list of words out loud one time and then try to write as many of them as you can remember on the paper without looking back. When you think you have them all, look back.
Don�t read past the block of words until you�ve finished.

Go:
door, glass, pane, shade, ledge, sill, house, open, curtain, frame, view, breeze, sash, screen, shutter

Now, take a look at the list. How did you do?
Did you write down all the words?
Did you write the word window down?
If presented properly, 85 percent of people will remember seeing window in the list, but it isn�t there.
If you did, you just gave yourself a false memory thanks to the misinformation effect.

In 1974, Elizabeth Loftus at the University of Washington conducted a study in which people watched safety films of car crashes.

She then asked the participants to estimate how fast the car was going, but she divided the people into groups and asked the question differently for each. These were the questions:
� About how fast were the cars going when they smashed into each other?
� About how fast were the cars going when they collided into each other?
� About how fast were the cars going when they bumped into each other?
� About how fast were the cars going when they hit each other?
� About how fast were the cars going when they contacted each other?

The people�s answers in mph averaged like this:
� Smashed � 40.8
� Collided � 39.3
� Bumped � 38.1
� Hit � 34.0
� Contacted � 31.8

She raised the ante by asking the same people if they saw broken glass in the film. There was no broken glass.

Sure enough, the people who were given the word smashed in their question were twice as likely to remember seeing glass, and people from every group falsely remembered seeing it.

Since then, hundreds of experiments into misinformation effect have been conducted, and people have been convinced of all sorts of things. Screwdrivers become wrenches, white men become black men, etc.

Studies show you can become convinced you were lost in a shopping mall as a child even though you never were.
Loftus even convinced people they shook hands with Bugs Bunny when they visited Disney World as a kid.

There are many explanations as to why this is happening, but the effect is well established and predictable.

Scientists generally agree memories aren�t recorded like videos or stored like data on a hard drive. They are constructed and assembled on the spot like Legos from a bucket in your brain.

Neurologist Oliver Sacks once had a patient who became colorblind after a brain injury. Not only could he not see certain colors, he couldn�t imagine them or remember them. Memories of cars and dresses and carnivals were suddenly drained, washed down. (You can read more about his research in his book, �The Island of the Colorblind.�)

Even though this patient�s memories were first imprinted when he could see color, they now could only be conjured up with the faculties of his current imagination.

Each time you build a memory, you make it from scratch, and if much time has passed you stand a good chance of getting the details wrong. With a little influence, you might get big ones wrong.

Loftus has rallied against eyewitness testimony for decades now, and she also has criticized psychologists who say they can dredge up repressed memories from childhood.

Think back to the exercise above when you falsely saw curtains in the list of things around a window. It took almost no effort to implant the memory.
Wait, was it curtains?"


Manipulation to achieve the desired result. CAN someone be "Implanted" with false information that they will believe was real? Of course they can. That isn't the issue. The issue is "what" truth is being examined.

There is a list of words, how many does someone remember. Some will remember all of them, some a few, and some may even "add" something to the list. So what.

The Cars collided. That is the fact. How fast the cars were going depends on other facts NOT readily available. What they remember about the crash is irrelevant to how accurate they "estimated" the cars were traveling prior to the collision. They were given a changed scenario where words used were designed to alter the "fact" of the speed that might generally result is the "degree" of the impact of the cars. But if you gave the same "Test" to someone who is trained in this sort of observation, like my son who is a cop and has "estimated" speed very accurately and confirmed that speed with radar, they will likely "score" much higher on the "eyewitness" scale.

Again, even if I wanted to agree that people's perceptions can vary, and I would agree to that, the CONCLUSION drawn that "eyewitness testimony is unreliable in ALL situations" is an incorrect conclusion. Even in the scenarios cited, not ALL eyewitnesses got that information wrong. SOME actually, even given the intentional manipulation by the tester, got the information (their memory of what actually happened) correct, but the article focused on the ones who "missed" or "added" information and you have attempted to extrapolate that to ALL situations. The article itself proved that contention is false.




You are correct in one assumption, I have no desire to spend my time reading articles for your enjoyment when I already know your premise of applicability to ALL situations is false.

A premise that has merit in the context of your statement is that "if you tell a lie often enough, it will become the truth." Big deal. It's still a lie.

And the Emperor HAS no clothes too. That is the truth.

Here's another one: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."


Last point regarding the article: "Even though this patient�s memories were first imprinted when he could see color, they now could only be conjured up with the faculties of his current imagination.

Duh! The condition was changed by BRAIN DAMAGE. The capacity of the brain was altered by the brain injury. To conclude that has some support for the premise is both illogical and false. His "memories" of color may still be there, but is ability to access those memories was evidently destroyed. Just like the data on your hard drive is inaccessible if you don't have a fully functional computer that has the capacity TO access the stored data. Just as the patient might have to be "re-taught" colors for future observation and classifications of new memories post brain injury, you might have to get a new computer to access what's stored on your harddrive. But for now, we can't get a new brain to replace the damaged areas of the patient's brain.


And with that, I've spent enough time on a senseless "rabbit trail."

Good luck in your discussion.

So, I read this. I reread this. I picked it apart, I turned it over.

Here's the conclusion; proof by verbosity, qualifiers by amphiboly, false attribution (adding the word "all" to the eyewitness testimony statement), straw man, along with a lot of slippery slope, appeal to authority, and lack of any evidence which is not anecdotal. You aren't debating, you are rambling.

Nothing independent and verifiable was brought to the discussion.

I provided the the scenario and data based on what you stated. Rather than going with the identified scenario, you provided your own scenario in which current data, and verification by other sources was available.

This is not in line with the discussion. This is you rewording the discussion.

So, here's another scenario, let's see if you can stick with it.

You are standing in line at a store when it is robbed. You get nothing more than a short glance at the perpetrator, who shoots and kills the store clerk. There is no video security. You are the only witness. 2 months later, you are brought in to identify the perpetrator. Could you do it?

HUNDREDS of studies say no.

Then, you go as far as to reverse the presented information; memory is not pulled up like data from a hard drive.

You then continue by stating


You do know that memory and color perception are completely different areas of the brain? You are jumping to the conclusion that because the area which dictates color perception was damaged, that somehow the memory centers were damaged as well. I think that the neurologist in this case would have taken this into account. In fact, had he not, the study would have been dismantled in peer review, and never published.

The ad hominem, thinly veiled or not, also brings nothing to the discussion.

The thing that you fail to realize, and refuse to recognize, is that this particular psychological bias is a component of the "fog effect." And I intend to bring other components up for discussion. You can red herring all you want with terms like "psychobabble," but you have NO SUPPORT FOR YOUR CLAIMS.

Oh, speaking of bias - next time you decide to make a bias call, how about providing a description and evidence that is verifiable? Is that too hard to a former debater? Simply using the word - as you put it "playing word games" - again, brings nothing to the table.

No, sir. It is I wasting my time on a tortoise chase.

Continuing the foggy trail, and in light of previous posts, I present to you;

Confirmation Bias

The Misconception: Your opinions are the result of years of rational, objective analysis.

The Truth: Your opinions are the result of years of paying attention to information which confirmed what you believed while ignoring information which challenged your preconceived notions.

Guilty; "death/sneezes come in 3's"

In terms of "the fog" this is where marital history is reviewed, and only negatives are reviewed.

"You never did ______."


An affair requires a shift of core concepts of self - it requires a shift of opinion and belief to lead a double life which is, at it's very core, wrong. So, in interest of defending the actions, in interest of justifying the belief, Confirmation Bias is applied to present "a bad marriage."

The opposite was true for myself. I looked back, and instead remembered the good things.

"How could you do this when I did _____?"

I can't say if this is true for all betrayed spouses, however.

I'm sorry, but you continue down the same line of reasoning and purpose that you seem to have set up from the beginning:

Get over yourself!

With the title of your thread you set the intent and purpose of what you wanted to argue.

Your premise was that "eyewitness testimony is unreliable." That was an ALL-inclusive statement. It allowed for no exceptions to the statement. SOME eyewitness testimony can be unreliable. But some eyewitness testimony is very reliable.

Later in your post you tied that blanket statement to the condition of marital infidelity.
No one denies that rewriting of marital history often occurs. But your attempt to use the Wayward Spouse's rewriting of history to justify their adultery is a limited application of the blanket statement. In that limitation, the statement would be true.

Likewise, the truth of infidelity is not dependent upon misinformation or attempts to "add" things that were not there. The "specifics" of some details are not what is important, the FACT of the infidelity, the breaking of the marital covenant IS what is important. Likewise, the often heard statement from Wayward Spouse's to the Betrayed Spouse; "Why don't you just forget it and get over it!", also denies the reality of the fact of the betrayal.

The underlying premise of your statement, especially as you are trying to apply it to marriage and recovery is that because the details are "unimportant" or "unreliable" that all "eyewitness" testimony about the affair is unreliable and should, therefore, be discarded.

Your basic premise would seem to be that Truth is unimportant, or at least "relative."

My point is very simple; the truth of adultery is very important and very relative to the one flesh entity known as "marriage."

If you want to play psychological games to give you some mental comfort, then by all means do so for yourself, knock yourself out, but please don�t tell me or anyone else to "Get over yourself!"

Or perhaps you might want to contemplate how that thread title might apply to you and your own situation?



That may be true sometimes, but in this case you set up this thread with the specific intent to be "right" in whatever you thought you were doing with the thread. And as I said earlier, I'd "play your game" for a little while. That little while has ended.

But I truly and sincerely hope that this is not how you apply your logic and reasoning to your marriage. You DO want to be right and you do like to argue, but not for understanding. You like to argue to prove your preconceived notion correct. At least in the case of this thread anyway. Hopefully there are situations when you really are more interested in discussion rather than setting people up as a foil for you.

Truth matters. So does your slant in how you present things, and then get bent out of shape when someone doesn't "agree" with you "right down the line."

This sort of psychological study has application, but as in all things, it must be understood in the limited context in which it is to be applied. The variation in "observation" and memory is well known, and all those studies do is show it. They also do not show that ALL people ALL THE TIME "fail" in the details. Some people are very good at details. People with photographic memories are especially good at the details. People trained to observe are very good at remembering details.

The problem enters in when you attempt to apply one "truth" to a completely different set of issues. It applies to "rewriting" of marital conditions, it does NOT apply to the fact of adultery and the purposeful breaking of the marriage covenant that was entered into by both spouses in the marriage.



This is news???

Do we need "psychological terms" to know that it happens frequently as Wayward Spouses seek to rationalize and justify DOING what they want to do?

"Confirmation bias" in your language is the same as "Sin" in mine. People seek whatever rationalization they want to in order to "allow" themselves to do whatever they want to do (in the case of adultery - sin).

"Selective memory," "Rationalizations," "Moral Relativism," etc., are terms that can be applied that are used frequently to ENABLE someone to do what is "wrong." Change the standard of "right and wrong" behavior and you can justify any behavior anyone WANTS to do.

And that really has nothing to do with memory. It has everything to do with self-preeminence and the granting of the right to oneself to DO whatever they feel like doing. It has to do with justifying in their minds any sort of reason that gives them the license to sin.

FH, I'm not going to waste my time with you. You aren't debating, you are arguing. You make claims, assumptions, and accusations - all loosely and based on your own opinion - without any supporting evidence.

Never again presume to lecture me on my marriage. I am not your child, and your patronizing arrogance and willful ignorance and denial don't gain you any points in the conversation.

I don't care how long winded you get, don't care what words you try to twist by wrapping in quotes, don't care if you use biblical quotes, don't care what you capitilize, don't care if you try to qualify your statements by inserting "fact" and "truth" as if just using the word makes the statement so.


My mother is married to a piece of work like you, and it isn't respectable, it's distugsting and arrogant, and I have no reason to tolerate it. Thank you, however, for teaching me the importance of the forum ignore feature.

Adios.

ROFLMAO! The pot calling the kettle black!

Not to worry, I have no desire to say anything about your marriage.

You use a set 'em up thread and then get bent out of shape when someone disagrees with you . Seems like I was correct in my assumption about you after all.

So it seems you do need to "Get over yourself!"

Knock yourself out with your ad hominem attack method.

So what the author of the study is saying is that we can't trust the study.

After all, if eyewitness testimony is suspect, or that observations can be swayed by how the question is formed, then doesn't that call this and every other study into question?

Isn't the author saying that personal biases bend the truth. How does the author prevent that very truth from impacting the study results and their interpretation?

The study calls itself into question.

Pluralize that. Studies. Hundreds over the past 30 years. In controlled environments, under rigorous scientific rules - and then peer-reviewed prior to publishing in scientific journals.

This is evidence-based research. The claim isn't "ALL" - that is being assumed. The claim of "all," however, isn't enough to dismiss the claim.

The burden of science; you can deny anything and everything you like, but you need proof, you need evidence. You need both of those to make a claim, or to deny a claim.

This isn't politics.

Though, I understand we live in a world where people will accept an unsupported claim like "immunization causes autism" without going any further.

However, both of these psychological biases feed into exactly why that is so; people don't want to have their beliefs or opinions challenged, they just want to be right.

Welcome to the argument culture.

wrong thread.

Hooray for a lesson in Learned Helplessness!


Back on the grind...

The Misconception: If you are in a bad situation, you will do whatever you can do to escape it.

The Truth: If you feel like you aren�t in control of your destiny, you will give up and accept whatever situation you are in.


http://youarenotsosmart.com/2009/11/11/learned-helplessness/

HHH, you asked me to post here if I had any more objections to your advice to Chris.

You said:

Please note that you did not give up games because your wife knocked herself out trying to fill your LB. You gave up when you were told (effectively) that your marriage was over and she was in love with someone else. That was, by definition, a gigantic lovebuster of a speech, and yet the danger that you saw to your marriage prompted you to pay attention to your marriage.

I haven't read the thread on which you described the events, but you must have tackled the affair and in some way made it end. (Exposure, or whatever.)

When it ended and your wife agreed to to try recovery with you, she THEN went all out to compensate you. She did not make efforts to fill your LB while you were excessively gaming. That is not how the gaming ended.

I have read your comments about her refusing to leave, and putting up with your rages, and how her behaviour has helped you fall back in love. (I have read these comments on wulfpackgirl's thread.)

You are using yourself and your own experience as a template for your advice to Chris, and yet what happened when you discovered the affair was nothing like you are recommending to him; it was the direct opposite.

Additionally:

You say you abused the game out of loneliness and an empty love bank. You have no idea whether Chris's wife is abusing the game for the same reason. Other people on the thread, like ManinMotion, have have described their own feelings of addiction to games, and yet you bypass their experience to insist that your own behaviour, that of abuse, is what Chris's wife is displaying.

You are advising from a very personal standpoint, i.e. this is what is was for me, so this is what it must be for her. You advise that we should not beat her up, because what she is doing is normal for that game; she isn't doing anything extraordinary.

I am NOT advising from experience. I have not been involved in games, deployment or any kind of addiction or abuse. I am looking at what Chris has written, recognising an affair and using Harley advice to get it ended.

I think your personal investment in gaming is causing you to give bad advice.

KK. Fair enough assessment. Wheels posted up rather well, and to the contrary, however, how he drew Sapphire out with Plan A.

The way I was drawn out of gaming may seem like a poignant point, but I would hardly state that an affair or threat of divorce or separation is the best card to play.

It's not just her time playing the game that points to that, it's her behavior towards Chris in conversations that he posted, and his own comments, the way he talks to her about the game, that points towards withdrawal and/or conflict on BOTH sides of the situation. Obviously, Chris is more in withdrawal.

FWW could have easily drawn me out with Plan A. Every single time she respectfully requested I quit playing the game and spend time with her, I did. Every time she employed an AO/DJ/SD to get my time, I resisted.

That is not just a personal experience - it's an echoed experience for any AH/IB activity. It's echoed in several stories on this board.

Hope anyone I have gone 'round with on that thread doesn't take it personally. Again, if I do tick you off, I'm sure FWW would be more than glad to deliver a smack for you.

: )

This isn't entirely true. He listed it as part of his Plan A but it really isn't ~ he forced her to stop playing the game. He blocked it and was there to physically stop her.

HHH,

I have had the feeling from reading some of your other posts that you misrepresent, what a poster has said. You have definitely done that here.

Wheels did NOT post "to the contrary". This is what he said:

His actions were very heavily weighted in favour of the stick.

How could you simply bypass what he said about cutting off the games, blocking Facebook and cancelling the joint account? How could you simply leave those out and go to the part where he said that AFTER doing those things, he got rid of the DJs and turned on the charm?

How could you fail to mention that, when he caught her gaming beyond the agreed time, he tackled his wife directly on this?

How could you in any way read what Wheels said as an endorsement of your position of "Plan A, with no direct tackling of the affair and gaming"?

Your response to me was "KK. Fair enough assessment", but you do not seem to see how serious my point is. You write in an off-hand manner quite often, but this sometimes spills over into disrespect, such as when you accuse posters here of "group think". If there is "group think" here, it is because we are trying to apply Dr Harley's advice to desperate people in deep trouble. Chris is fighting a war for your country and mine, and watching from afar while his marriage falls apart because of an affair, and his thread is not a place on which to write that "everyone is all up-in-arms about the OM situation - or all up in arms about this or that - all ready to bicker blah blah blah..."

Up in arms about the OM situation - as if we shouldn't be? Up in arms about this or that - as if anything about this terrible situation can be dismissed as "this or that"? Ready to bicker - because some of us insist on applying Dr Harley's principles, and steering Chris towards them?

And earlier in the thread you said "Dropping game chat logs and going "SHE'S HAVING AND AFFAIR, SHE'S BEHAVING INAPPROPRIATELY!!!!! ZOMG I CAN HAZ CHEEZEBURGERZZZZ!!!!!!!" Is going to be nothing more than a gigantic disrespectful judgment."

That is a gigantically disrespectful way of describing Chris's attempts to get help here for the crisis of this affair. The "'head up backside" picture was also.

You know a lot about gaming, and I'll defer to you about the normality of the language and what it all means. You are wrong, however, to tell Chris that, "Those game logs are great for shock value, but absolutely devoid of any contextual value, or any sort of target."

The contextual value is that his wife is a married woman and a mother and he is correct that she should not be writing these things. If the game cannot be played without her using those expressions, then she must stop playing it.

You might understand games, but your understanding of MB principles has been off in that thread. You would do well to sit back and learn from the experienced posters such as MelodyLane and HerPapaBear who are now posting to the thread. They have completed the MB online course and met with and counselled directly with Dr Harley for some years now. Don't blast the thread with any more "you don't know what you're talking about because you don't understand games" posts.

I don't need your wife to slap you. I can do it myself.

See my rant thread for my standing on experience.

Appeal to authority does not always lead to correctness.

Anyway, did have some trip-ups from the "off-hand" posting style that led to some gaps in communication - often making a statement and forgetting the actual point, so I am going to address them.

1st - I commented that her chat "Hey Baby" is "worth wondering about," that was me being guilty of group-think. It's not all that uncommon in the game, but I know dismissing it would have got me lambasted as those with a "superior position/opinion" wouldn't agree. It was choosing a battle.






Immediately preceding the quote about the chat logs:



I failed to follow this with the context; because it is viewed as a "hobby" she is going to battle it because she sees it as "nothing wrong." Were someone sewing or golfing 6-10 hours a day, it would be the same situation - however, gamers are often held to a different standard, because most people don't see the "value" in gaming, and/or just view it as a total waste of time. The statement was not made to legitimize her abuse of the game, but to illustrate that gaming is, like the mentioned activities, a hobby/RC activity.


Kicking out a generality here; much like many in their early and mid-20's are binge drinkers - abusers, but not alcoholics. Part of that wonderful "invincible youth" stage.

Anything else I can clarify or address for you?

I'm sorry to say this but you haven't clarified anything for me.

Part of my problem is that your use of language confuses me. I actually don't understand what you are saying at times. For example, what does this mean?

"See my rant thread for my standing on experience."

What did I ask you about your "standing on experience"? I pointed out to you that YOU SAID that your experience in temporarily giving up gaming was brought about by the ILYBNILWY speech. It was not brought about by the carroty Plan A that you are forcefully recommending for Chris.

Why are you recommending that I read your rant thread? Either the gaming ended as you described above or it did not. Since Chris's WAYWARD WIFE is the gamer and not Chris, and Chris is not having an affair, then her gaming is not going to end from the same cause as yours. Your experience in giving up gaming is not useful to Chris at this time.

What does this mean?

"Appeal to authority does not always lead to correctness."

Which of my statements does this refer to? What authority are you talking about; Chris's employers? That sentence is just too cryptic for me.

As for the rest of your post; it does what several of your other posts do. I does not address the point I made above it!

1. You made an assertion about the Plan A of Wheels_Spinning.

2. I countered that you misrepresented the post, and ignored the heavy "stick" part of Wheels_Plan A.

You bypassed the whole post to go back to statements that you made earlier, which were not the statements that I have been challenging you on.

I have quoted and underlined the statements of yours that I take issue with.

You have not answered my points, but made new points (or defended old ones that were not in contention.)

You are frustrating to talk to, because you move the goalposts when you are asked to defend your statements. Your arguments lack consistency and clarity.

One more then and then I'm off to bed:

You diverted Chris's thread by inserting a red herring about whether his wife was an abuser or an addict.

I read the powerpoint slides that you linked, and I see that the expert describes the behaviours as almost identical. Addicts and abusers both do things that are ruinous to health and to social relationships, and that might break the law.

The main test of the difference between the two comes when the individual is forced to give up the source of the addiction.

The addict will crave the substance and go to serious lengths to get it. The author mentioned "robbing party stores to get more morphine". The addict can't give up easily, spends a great deal of time obtaining the substance and continues to use it despite the consequences.

The abuser can give up on his own. When he stops using the substance, the symptoms of withdrawal are few.

However, how are we to know which one Chris's wife is, and does it make a difference to what he should do now?

Dr Harley says that we cannot know whether a person in an affair is addicted. We will only know that they are addicted if they give it up and experience withdrawal. If they are not addicted, they will not go to extraordinary lengths to seek their substance (the affair partner).

However, because we cannot know whether a WS is addicted or not, he says we must treat the affair in the same way regardless; cut it off, cold turkey, with absolute NC for life thereafter.

In other words, it doesn't matter what category Chris's wife falls into. Trying to establish whether she is an abuser or an addict is a red herring, a waste of time and a diversion from the urgent business of stopping her affair and rescuing the marriage. You have taken that thread down a path that it shouldn't have followed with your attempts to stop us calling her an addict.

Whatever category she falls into, the treatment is the same. The affair must be stopped, the conditions that enabled the affair (online gaming) must be shut down and there must be NC by any means between her and the men she is talking to.

1. I never thought on MB that I would see intraweb talk like "can I haz cheezburger?111!11" It reminded me of a lot of off-topic areas in my weight lifting forums.

2. HHH, there's a pretty sweet MMO if you have an Android phone called Dungeon Defenders: First Wave. It's getting a cooperative play by teh guys over at teh XDA forum.
2.a. If you don't have an Android phone, you need to get one.

3. Day 1 of not smoking sucks. I think I spent 3 bucks on chewing gum and my jaws hurt!

4. Game of Thrones series on HBO is going to be so freakin awesome.

Good post, Sugar. I tried to make the same point about the importance of defining addiction/abuse in this case, but got lost in the shuffle.

HHH, may I suggest an analogy? Remove the word 'gaming' and replace it with 'affair'. Your posts are alarmingly close to justifying wayward behavior in the context of a game.

As far as golfing 6-10 hours a day, or anything else that interferes with a person's relationships: anything to excess that is conducted in spite of damage to a relationship needs to be addressed. Anything. I don't care if it's backgammon or volunteer work.

Well said!

I wasn't going to ask this, but I just have to.

In what universe of healthy marriage exactly is it "OK" to discuss penises, having sex, and "eat me" with someone other than one's spouse? I am having trouble wrapping my mind around how ANY "gaming language" justifies that kind of talk.

This isn't rocket science. Uh....I cannot imagine a justifiable context in which I could chat with some other man about his penis and what I would like him to do to me.....ever.

Only as an example of abuse versus addiction.



See the above about carrot and stick.


Yes, I did. I have still failed - since we have cherry-picked and gone style-over-substance, and additionally appeal to motive.

See your previous accusation about ignoring parts of a poster's post.

So why did I repost those? Because you are trying to discern my motives using particular statements which you took exception to. Is the motive any more clear now?




I'll go back over those.

I also played the game because she didn't attempt to fill my LB at all. What she did was engage in AO/DJ/SD behavior, and drove me further into the game. Not excusable, just what happened. The very first thing I did was to ask for separation. It was also a case where I was in the home - not thousands of miles away for an extended period of time.


She ended physicality after ILYBINILWY - contact continued until he moved away - I had little more than the stabbing suspicion of how far it had gone.


Flip that back around; she refused to let me leave. She never asked or attempted to leave. I didn't really try all that hard, either. I kept asking permission.

My use of the word "rage" is unfortunate. When I "rage" compared to what people may imagine, it's pretty timid. I've never yelled, or called her any names, or made any threats. Rather, I explain exactly how much I hurt, and why I am so angry.


Because I believe, based on what I have learned here, that a lot of what I did along the way was DEAD WRONG. That is BASED on what I have learned here - the success(?) of my total experience so far does not mean that I would recommend it to anyone. My FWW was remorseful from the moment of discovery, and it has built to a crescendo throughout the process. Were I to tell him "what I would do" facing a WW like his, it would simply be "D." Up until this morning, with his most recent posts, this was not his goal.



You are right, I don't. I know that she is playing the game while her husband is thousands of miles away and engages in LB behaviors in his conversations with him. I have no idea what the balance of her LB$ is, but I think it's a safe gamble to bet it's pretty empty, no? She isn't quite behaving like someone with an overflowing LB$ now, is she?


And you are free to your opinion, but don't tell me my intentions when you demonstrate that you don't understand my intentions. Nor should you assume because I don't follow your accepted methodology that I am; a) going from a personal standpoint, or b) not using this program as my template.

His actions were very heavily weighted in favour of the stick.






Because the stick and the carrot GO TOGETHER. Let's examine that last quote there, particularly this phrase "I did alot to improve myself, to gain the respect from my wife, and I had to do it while enduring one of the worst pains of my life." That big, juicy carrot is NOT the reaction that is natural while someone is harming you, the stick totally is. The stick protects the BS while keeping the carrot as something of a goal. Without the carrot, the stick is... well, just a stick. The normal response is to beat the crap out of the donkey with it. Which effectively just makes the donkey hate the rider.


Per his own quote, in a very "carroty" manner. Short, sweet, simple. Not an extended conversation, not an AO, not a DJ, not a SD.


This is your assertion and incorrect understanding, part of the reason of throwing out my own quotes.




I'll concede this is a misstep on my part. And I haven't been entirely clear - the game has to go. I think some of my posts have lead people to not understand - again, I posted that not only must this game go, but she cannot again play any games made by that company, because it now has a "social networking" system that allows players to communicate across all games by that company.

As far as what and where Chris is, that's simply an appeal to emotion to give your argument weight. I am aware of where he is and what he is doing, and quite honestly it adds a grave complication to the matter. Which is why I suggested he look into family hardship leave or discharge.


Appeal to authority. The bickering that occurs here is quite simply people disagreeing with HOW those principals are applied. There is something going on with his situation that has to be discerned; is the disease the OM, or is the disease the game? BOTH are threats. However, if the OM is the driving force behind the gaming, then THAT root has to be killed. If the game is the force behind the OM, then THAT root has to be killed. They BOTH have to be addressed, and contact with the OM is occurring outside of the game.


Funny. Dropping the chatlogs already happened, and it made a blip, but she easily dismissed it; it's all just a joke and it's how people talk in the game. This is why context is important.


See the above.


The fact that it is a problem to her husband is the most important fact. I don't seem to remember arguing that... oh. Looked back over every post. I didn't saying directly to Chris that it shouldn't be a problem to him. It's been interpreted in that manner by others.


No. My target on intention has been off, and I allowed myself to be derailed and tied up in arguments and lost my purpose. Need to work on being more clear, and not allowing myself to be steered off course.

It's something I failed to be clear on, and I do agree that any activity followed in this manner needs to be addressed. What I have failed to state, is that the nature of the abusive use causes it to be more difficult to address - exponentially so with Chris not in the home. When he tried to expose to her parents, it was dismissed. Not. Good.

Unfortunately, her parents are likely biased toward their daughter, so he is going to have to have some clear, hard evidence to drop on them, and that is going to be difficult given his situation. Even with that, with all the smoke she's blowing, they will likely again be biased toward the daughter.

I saw your post when you made it MB, and it wasn't lost on me.

Due to his lack of support at home, where he is, and how long he is going to be away, it is rather important to determine between the two. If it is abuse, hopefully she can be redirected. If it is addiction, it's entirely possible she will chase another addiction - and possibly one that is more destructive. That bears some consideration.

Though, I'm sure he'd get better support if she was cut off of WoW and became a drunk....

It is both. She is addicted to online gaming and it is abusive. It is wrecking their marriage. I am a recovering alcoholic and you can bet my addiction was profoundly abusive. I drank for the same reasons most people become addicted: they are selfish, thoughtless as*holes who are running from life. And most of us do BLAME others for our failures. That is the way of a loser addict; they are accomplished blameshifters.

My addiction was 100% was my fault. If I didn't want to drink, wild horses could not have made me drink. It is the same with Chris's wife's addiction and your addiction, you there is nothing that could have forced you to do it if you didn't want to. The truth is you wanted to and she wants to.

In Chris's case, even though her parents were not of help the last time, he needs to try again. Maybe it is true they don't give a crap about her [and many parents don't love their children and won't lift a finger to help them] but he still needs to try to enlist them.

Sad thing is there is not a lot he can do, other than exposure, to repair this situation while he is gone. This is why I avoid military threads. I don't know how to help them.

That is not a good reason to avoid trying to kill an addiction. The solution, of course, is to replace the vacuum with something positive. Just as with an affair, the solution is to replace it with a healthy, happy marriage.

All addicts may abuse, but not all abusers are addicts. Addiction relies on dependency, abuse does not.

I fully understand YOUR experience - I GREW UP in "the program" and have not only seen how active addicts behave, but I know - as you WELL know as a recovering addict yourself - how recovering addicts behave. With him away from home, it can be just as threatening.

And you are spot on, ML. It's difficult figuring out how to help him. I gave him the best shot I had; advised a family hardship leave or discharge. He doesn't want to discharge. I can partially understand that, and it's his decision. But you KNOW that his military career - ESPECIALLY considering he is currently dealing with infidelity - is a huge threat and stress on his marriage.

And to each of you who has come in here to object and question, I THANK you all. I may be stubborn, but I don't value dead set opinions for myself. I obviously mis-communicated hugely.

HHH, I just saw this on writer's thread:

Cheers, mate!

Thank you!

I saw that too...

High five

Mr. W